The present invention relates to marketing in ecommerce, and more particularly to obtaining and presenting social contact presence data to encourage an online purchase.
Sellers and shoppers engage in activities that are expensive in terms of process, logistics, and time expended. A seller spends time and utilizes resources to market products, provide offers, generate demand, and determine logistics for purchased products. A shopper spends time and utilizes resources to research and compare products and price, add items to an online cart or online wish list, visit physical stores, and complete a purchase transaction via an online cart, a physical store, or other channels. The seller employs marketing techniques to encourage the shopper to make a purchase. The marketing techniques may include offering discounts and other rewards to the shopper, as well as easy and quick order fulfillment options, including instant online ordering and the option for the shopper to pick up the purchased item at a physical store. Before making an online purchase, the shopper considers many factors, including price (i.e., price including shipping costs and tax), post-buy and pre-buy services, inventory availability, etc. An ordering option that allows the shopper to (1) buy an item online and (2) pick up the item in store allows the shopper to avoid or reduce a shipping or service fee and may allow the shopper to receive the item more quickly than had the shopper selected a shipping option. The shopper may decide against an online purchase because the shipping options are too expensive and the option in which the shopper buys online and later picks up the item from a physical store takes a significant amount of time and effort to visit the physical store because the store's location is far away from the shopper's residence or not on the shopper's work commute path.